Urban airborne hazard for human health: CFD-DEM approach to respiratory urban airborne particulate
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The European Council has resolved to reduce the emissions of specific air pollutants, as the European Environment Agency (EEA) reported [1] According to the most recent EEA data, ammonia and fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) have the slowest rates of decrease among the pollutants. Because of their size and capacity to enter human respiratory systems, all of these pollutants, particularly the final two, represent a hazard for human health. According to the EEA and as depicted in Figure 1(a), PM2.5 is the most widely dispersed pollutant in urban settings. Additionally, these particles are the proper size to enter the deeper airways where gas exchange takes place and bypass the upper airways' filtering action [4,5]. Particles smaller than 5 μm have the ability to settle in the deeper airways, as demonstrated in Figure 1(b). In order to reduce and prevent pollution, it is crucial to be able to model and couple the airflow and pollutant dynamics in metropolitan areas with the simulations of the airflow and particles in human airways. In this session, a digital twin approach to the problem is introduced. In order to better comprehend pollution concentration under various conditions, a Reduce Order Model (ROM) of urban flow and pollutant conveyance is built [6]. To assess the upper airway filtering capacity of the particles in the PM2.5 range, they are then combined with CFD-DEM simulations of the human airways.
